About ten minutes back I had one of those moments in which you forget about your life and are seized by an epiphanic happiness that cannot be explained. I was looking at my computer looking at this man's face
when suddenly I was grinning like an idiot and my head felt light and my heart sailed away, like the way you feel the first time you smell the hills while driving up to them. This lasted exactly forty seconds.
Speaking of surreal, I would be betraying my self important self if I didn't write about this. At the Jazz Festival thing, I met someone. He was visiting from Germany as the bassist in one of the bands. All it took was one Almost Famous van ride with the band and a drunken after-party(SO much free wine) for me to learn that intimacy doesn't at all depend on language,color, time or distance. Sometimes it takes a dream sequence(it ended as quickly as it had begun) to make you believe that the world could maybe be right.
I will stop being overtly cheesy now. (To all girlfriends- more later!)
Despite all the getting high with a little help from my friends over bonfires and unceasing swearing, I had to wake up to the real world. Sometimes, only sometimes, ignorance could be better.
Tehelka Magazine uncovers a cruelty that only human beings that could be capable of. It's devastating, I don't even know what to say.
This is one of those days that I've been at the computer so long that I feel like my eyes and the screen are one. My biggest problem with the internet is that it makes you believe that you can be in more than one place at once.
Speaking of which, here is something Zadie Smith wrote on my favorite topic of debate in the whole wide world. (starts with face ends with book)
All the linking is because I am lazy and presently incapable of writing anything myself.
I realized today that we see our blogs like we see our bodies( when i say we, i mean me and people like me). It never looks good enough. Excessive examination makes it worse. Everyone else's seems better. Also,with apologies to my loyal friend blogger, I must say that tumblr has some pretty cool fancy shit going on.
Gone back to not reading and procrastinating like a dingbat. All my friends from out of town have decided to return (with massive amounts of whiskey from duty free, and constant guilt trips of ' abbe main itne din baad aaya hoon yaar!!') about a fortnight before my exams start. All curses are of course directed at the morons at Delhi University exam planning committee whateverthefuck who insist on trying to ruin our December every year. Emphasis on trying.Thanks to our irresponsible determination to party, it ain't gonna happen bitchezz!! I am not going to pass on the opportunity to say my favorite combination of three words in the English language.
FUCK THIS SHIT!! :D
It's alright, the internet is the God of our times; it's the closest that anything comes to omniscience and omnipresence.
ReplyDeletePointless realization of the day: Leonard Cohen looks a lot like Al Pacino
Tumblr is like Zara for blogs. It's "fancy" and almost everyone is moving on to it. There's always something newer and better out there.
ReplyDeleteZadie Smith's writing gives me a boner. If your writing/blog analogy works then I'd want to be her. Leonard Cohen is also one hell of a demented and sexy writer. I agree a lot with what Zadie says in that article.
The why I'm not on Facebook question has been given many replies before. But like Smith, I have a sort of anachronistic view of the internet. I've lagged behind in a time when the internet was all about anonymity. When a 9 year old could be a 30 year old civil lawyer (a 9 year old whose mother liked watching Ally McBeal, that is). I come from a time when friendless, over imaginitive angsty teenagers like myself (those who had livejournals and myspaces) had "friends" from around the globe who they could talk to about totally banal or very real things that were in their heads and be completely disconnected from their "real" lives while only disclosing as much as they saw fit. Faux families and friends were found, cancer patient from Hull, bipolar computer programmer from Montreal, a student couple from Romania, makeup artist Manson fans from Chicago, gay ex-heroin addict bass player from Portland. It was always easier to talk to strangers. You could be anyone, and in the process you could be yourself as well.
I always feel like with the whole Facebook thing you are your name. You are a google search that results in what you've been doing, who with, what people have to say about you etc etc. You are the number of contacts you have. You are constantly in the process of constructing an identity for yourself that can fit in a convenient profile format. You take pictures to show people you've been having fun (and assholes like me who are not on Facebook take advantage of that by using their friend's profiles to laugh at you :D )
My virtual persona now is getting increasingly limited. I'm not on any forums anymore, I don't go to chatrooms, I don't use social networking sites (barring this blog and my last.fm page), I talk to exactly 2 people on my Gtalk list (consisting of 10 people). I come online and look at the usual blogs and comics and inbox and wonder "what now". In real life I'm getting better at the social thing (thanks greatly to you, my dear) but my personal bubble is still zealously guarded and very much invite only. And you really don't need the internet to be in many places at once, you just need to perfect the art of walking through life with your feet on the ground and your head in the clouds. :D
I don't really know where I'm going with this never ending comment. I love bakchodoing on your blog. I should get back to studying or something.
And toxic bornfires and loud swearing and joints and whiskey are a few of my favourite things. And all the senti people I love who sing "I'm Yours". Let's do something tomorrow. Might meet Girija in the afternoon.
Holy shit, two comments within a minute of each other. Shan, you are hot shit.
ReplyDelete@ marvel: Zuckerberg might be the god of our times. Sitting in his office controlling our lives. Both of you(you and queerfish here), should be proud to be living outside god's rule. But the internet doesn't perceive, right? But yes, omniscient as- knowing everything everywhere. also, let me know when you get sick of me calling you by your last name :)
ReplyDelete@v : you're not a name on facebook. you're only a face. the name puts it perfectly. it confirms superficiality in every one of us on it. I agree with everything Smith says-she's freakin incredible. For me, facebook has gone from being something to 'keep in touch', to an angsty experiment. haha. But i still maintain that it's not all bad. I must add that I cannot bear the thought of you leaving. have studied nothing today also.
yeah he does look like Al Pacino. This website says that he also apparently looks like...wait for it.. Adam Sandler.
ReplyDeleteFacebook is evil, that's all I say. And it's okay, as long as people don't try to shorten my name or something, I'm cool with it. And Adam Sandler? Hmmm
ReplyDelete